May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is
unlikely to make a U.S. bank acquisition because potential deals
wouldn’t generate enough profit, Senior Executive Vice President
Richard Nesbitt said.

U.S. retail-banking returns “aren’t that attractive to
Canadian banks,” Nesbitt said today at the Bloomberg Canada
Economic Summit in Toronto.

Canadian banks used their relative strength compared with
U.S. lenders during the financial crisis to buy banking assets
in the U.S. and globally. Bank of Montreal agreed in December to
purchase Wisconsin lender Marshall & Ilsley Corp. for about $4
billion in its biggest takeover to date. Toronto-Dominion Bank,
which has more branches in the U.S. than it does in Canada,
bought auto lender Chrysler Financial in April for about $6.3
billion.

Scotiabank doesn’t expect to buy a U.S. consumer bank but
will continue looking at expansion where it already does
business around the world, said Brian Porter, the lender’s group
head of international banking.

Porter also said Canadian bank mergers, which are
restricted by the federal government, won’t happen “in our
lifetime.”